On March 17

On this day in ...
... 1969 (40 years ago today), a native of Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire, who had already served as Minister of Labour and Foreign Minister, Golda Meir, was elected Prime Minister of Israel. Meir (far right) held the position till 1974, and remains the only woman so to serve, although the outgoing Foreign Minister and Kadima Party leader at center right, Tzipi Livni, would like to become the 2d.
... 1959 (50 years ago today), amid an anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet, the Dalai Lama escaped the capital city Lhasa along with 20 others. Their whereabouts would remain unknown for the more than 2 weeks it took them to traverse the Himalayas (below left) and seek refuge in India. (photo credit) The New York Times reported that just last Tuesday the Dalai Lama, now 73 and still in exile a half-century after the failed uprising,

delivered one of his harshest attacks on the Chinese government in recent times ... saying that the Chinese Communist Party had transformed Tibet into a 'hell on earth' and that the Chinese authorities regarded Tibetans as 'criminals deserving to be put to death.'
'Today, the religion, culture, language and identity, which successive generations of Tibetans have considered more precious than their lives, are nearing extinction.'

(Prior March 17 posts are here and here.)

On February 22

On this day in ...
... 1680, or perhaps 2 days earlier, Catherine Deshayes was burned at the stake on charges of witchcraft on the Place de Grève in Paris. A "sorceress" about 40 years old, the woman known as La Voisin (left) "practised medicine, especially midwifery, procured abortion, and provided love powders and poisons." She was among many persons prosecuted in L'Affaire des poisons, or Poison Affair, a fatally hysteric phase during the reign of Louis XIV.
... 1940, in Lhasa, Tibet, a 4-year-old boy named Tenzin Gyatso (below right) was enthroned as the 14th Dalai Lama. (photo credit) In 1950 he "was called upon to assume full political power as Head of State and Government when Tibet was threatened by the might of China." Four years later he was forced into exile in India, and has not been able to return to his country since. He received the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of

the fact that the Dalai Lama in his struggle for the liberation of Tibet consistently has opposed the use of violence. He has instead advocated peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect in order to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of his people.

(Prior February 22 posts here and here.)

On April 29

On this day in ...
... 1951, at a meeting in Beijing, China presented a 5-member delegation of the Tibetan government with a draft agreement. According to the Tibetan Government in Exile, the delegation "rejected the Chinese proposal in toto," and in any event did not have power to enter a pact with China; nonetheless, after undergoing "harsh and insulting terms" and being both "threatened with physical violence" and isolated from its Government, on May 23 the delegation signed the "Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" to avoid "an immediate military advance on Lhasa," Tibet's capital. China's official news service, Xinhua, has an extremely different view of events. As we've posted, China's half-century presence in -- and the Dalai Lama's exile from -- Tibet sparked riots there last month. This month, there've been disturbances nearly everywhere the Olympic torch has been displayed.
.... 2008 (today), is celebrated the 6th annual International Dance Day. At this year's celebration at UNESCO headquarters in Paris will feature performances by South African and French dancers as well as delivery of the annual "Message" by dancer and choreographer Gladys Faith Agulhas, shown at right with Makhotso Sompane (photo credit) of Agulhas Theatre Works, Johannesburg. The date was set aside in order, as UNESCO put it,

to bring all dance together on this day, to celebrate this art form and revel in its universality, to cross all political, cultural and ethnic barriers and bring people together in peace and friendship with a common language : Dance.

Monks march for a free Tibet

After last year’s monk-led protests in Burma/Myanmar , monks from monasteries outside Lhasa were on the march in Tibet. Coinciding with the 49^th anniversary of the 1959 uprising that forced the Dalai Lama into exile, protests began last Monday, when roughly 400 monks set out to march the 5 miles from Drepung Loseling Monastery to Lhasa’s city center to protest rules restricting religious practices and requiring “patriotic education” in the monastery: i.e., monks must “study government propaganda and write denunciations of the Dalai Lama.” The marchers had made it about halfway when police arrested 50 or 60 of them and the rest promptly turned the march into a sit-in, in which 100 more monks from Drepung joined. As the Drepung monks were agreeing to return to their monastery on Tuesday morning, a dozen or so monks from the Sera Monastery waving a Tibetan flag (at right) began a pro-independence rally outside Tibet’s most sacred temple, the Jokhang, in the center of Lhasa. Arrests there sparked further protest that day, as a reported 500-600 monks stormed from the Sera Monastery demanding the release of their brethren—and independence for Tibet. On Wednesday, monks from the Ganden Monastery held their own protest, which was followed on Thursday by what are apparently the largest anti-Chinese protests to be held since the 1987 and 1988 protests by monks from the Drepung and Sera monastery. While those protests ended in bloodshed, Chinese forces seemed to be more restrained on Thursday, thanks to the upcoming Olympic games in Beijing. On Friday, however, violence erupted. Reports as to how it began or evolved conflict depending on whether the reporter is ethnic Tibetan or Chinese, but it would appear that monks from the Ramoche Temple set out to protest Chinese treatment of monks who had demonstrated earlier in the week. The Ramoche monks were joined by ethnic Tibetans, who began burning shops and cars, including military vehicles. The Dalai Lama asked both sides to avoid violence but otherwise supported the protesters, and thousands of Buddhist sympathizers in Nepal and India hit the streets to show their support. On Saturday, as Chinese authorities reported they had regained control in Lhasa, clashes broke out in the city of Xiahe, Gansu Province, where small protests had begun the day before and escalated to involve perhaps as many as 4000 Buddhist monks and Tibetans calling for the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet. Chinese authorities say they haven’t fired on the crowds, but witnesses report the opposite, claiming at least 30 deaths, if not 100.